THE INTERNET POST

The U.S. spent $75.4 billion on its military and civilian spy agencies in the last fiscal year, officials announced Tuesday.

The U.S. intelligence budget is divided between the Military Intelligence Program, which the Pentagon said was $21.5 billion for fiscal 2012, and the National Intelligence Program, which was $53.9 billion, according to Director of National IntelligenceJames R. Clapper.

The National Intelligence Program (NIP) funds the CIA and other civilian agencies and provides some funding for the major military agencies such as the National Security Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency.

“The NIP supports national decision-makers, so, to the extent that the NSA and other agencies in the Department of Defense provide intelligence to the president or other civilian leaders, they are funded from the NIP,” said Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, who advocates for more transparency in U.S. intelligence funding.

Mr. Aftergood said the fiscal 2012 NIP budget was $700 million lower than the previous year’s, noting that “it’s the first drop in the NIP for many years.”

The NIP budget had risen every year since it was first disclosed in 2007, he said.